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03/01/2017 11:01 PMRated R
Over-the-top and clichéd, Fist Fight is a new comedy film from first-time full length movie director Richie Keen (Hooked and TV’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) starring a talented cast of actors unable to do much of anything funny with a ridiculous script.
Charlie Day (Horrible Bosses and TV’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) is Andy Campbell—a husband, father, and high school English teacher. Campbell is a nice guy who is used to get pushed around by everyone else around him basically because he allows it to happen. Never are things worse for him than on the last day of the school year. With a young daughter and his pregnant wife at home, Campbell is especially nervous on the last day of the school year because rumors are running rampant that the district is making big cuts to its teaching staff in order to save money in the upcoming year. On top of that, the last day is senior prank day—a day when the graduating seniors push well past what they would typically try to get away with at school. Campbell is astounded by the anarchy he witnesses around him—the students go way beyond traditional pranks in favor of all-out lawlessness at a school where it is apparent things are not typically that much better on the rest of the non-prank school days. The administration is unable to get the students’ behavior under control, which leaves each teacher to attempt to reinstate order in his or her own way, or to add to the unpredictability of the school’s proceedings, as is often the case at Roosevelt High School.
Campbell’s day is going along pretty poorly when he is confronted by the school’s most hot-headed and feared teacher, Mr. Strickland (Ice Cube of Ride Along and 21 Jump Street). Strickland smashes a student’s desk in half during a bout of rage that leaves all of his students running from his classroom and the only adult witness is Campbell. The principal (Dean Norris of Little Miss Sunshine and TV’s Breaking Bad) calls on Campbell to help him sort through the events that occurred and that eventually leads to Principal Tyler firing Strickland due to his inappropriate behavior.
Incensed over the fact that Campbell snitched on him, Strickland challenges Campbell to a fist fight in the parking lot at the end of the school day. Despite Campbell’s insistence that he is not going to engage in a fight with him, Strickland is even more insistent that they are going to fight. Soon, all of the faculty and students catch wind of the planned after-school fight and begin to take sides. Campbell scrambles for a way out. He calls on his closest co-workers—misguided guidance counselor Holly (Jillian Bell of 21 Jump Street and The Night Before), and clueless physical education teacher Coach Crawford (Tracy Morgan of Cop Out and The Longest Yard), to lend him advice and support. Campbell eventually acquiesces to the fact that there is not a way around it—he is simply going to have to face Strickland in a fight.
It is clear that nothing more was expected of Ice Cube in his role as Strickland than to look menacing and to yell into the camera—and, since those were the only expectations, he nails the role. Charlie Day is the same likable, funny guy his fans know him as, but his likability can only go so far to help him try to overcome the asinine situations in which Campbell finds himself. The supporting cast is comprised of a plethora of clichéd characters who add nothing to the film, including any humor.
Fist Fight delivers on what is promised all along—a fist fight, but beside from that, it delivers on little else, including any real humor.
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